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John Herbert
Herbert is an elderly pedophile who likes boys and lives on Spooner Street with his old, crippled dog, Jesse. He has a high-pitched, very soft, effeminate voice and with a slight whistle lisp. He is often seen wearing a light blue robe and slippers and uses a zimmer-frame walker to get around. He becomes fixated on Chris in To Love and Die in Dixie when Chris took up a paper route and developed an unhealthy obsession with him. When the family returned from the South, he left 113 messages asking what had happened to the paper boy. Herbert frequently seems to make inappropriate, sexually-tinged comments to teenage boys. It is revealed later on that he is the eldest member of the Skull and Bones secret society. Origins Originally, he was going to be a creepy driver of a school bus that Chris was afraid to go near. Herbert has a high voice and speaks with a whistle. According to Seth MacFarlane, Herbert was created when Mike Henry would use his voice to scold the writers when they had trouble coming up with new ideas for episodes. He admitted that it made him laugh every time and decided to adapt him as a character. Mike Henry had also said that the inspiration was a senior citizen that used to work with him at a grocery store. Character expansion Herbert first appeared in two episodes of the third season and was originally intended as a small time gag (as a lot of other previous characters before him), but due to high acclaim from fans, featured more regularly and was greatly expanded on in the fourth season. "The Courtship of Stewie's Father," an episode which included a subplot where Chris is told to do chores for Herbert after accidentally breaking his window with a baseball, Herbert's personal life is expanded somewhat. Here, viewers are introduced to Jesse, his dog that looks like Herbert and has similar mobility issues and utterances. However, most of Herbert's past remains unknown (e.g., whether he has a family). However, some light was possibly shed on his personal history when, while Chris and Herbert are at a fancy restaurant, he sings the song "Somewhere That's Green" (from the musical Little Shop of Horrors). Herbert's interpretation of the song can be seen as that of a lonely old man who, aware that he is nearing the end of his life, sees Chris as his one final opportunity for companionship. However, Herbert's true motives - a sympathy seeker or someone who truly is lonely and is seeking companionship - are placed in question with the final tag scene, where he becomes overjoyed when he begins watching a televised youth sporting event. Indeed, because of censorship issues related to this episode—Fox demanded the removal of several gags in which Herbert tries to make his move but Chris unknowingly outwits him—the end product that aired appeared to show Chris' accompanying Herbert to the restaurant as simply an act of kindness. In the fourth season episode Petergeist, Herbert saves Chris when an evil tree in the yard grabs him. After the tree initially attacks, Herbert states, "Hey Skinnybritches, that there is my man, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Duplicating the scene where Gandalf confronts the Balrog from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, he then proclaims, "You shall not pass" and slams his walker into the ground, causing the ground under the tree to split sending both the tree and Herbert falling down a long chasm into water, again mimicking the fight between Gandalf and the Balrog at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers film. It appears that he may have died in this episode, although a scene cut for time (and, according to the DVD commentary, Standards and Practices) had Herbert and the tree climb out of the hole after the Griffin house vanishes and Herbert asks the tree whether he was a giving tree or a receiving tree. The scene was later re-added to the DVD version. Herbert also tried unsuccessfully to hit on Stewie while he was doing Chris' paper route, saying "Oh ho, we've got a fighter" after Stewie verbally shot down his effort, exclaiming, while on his tricycle; "Piss off, you perverted old freak". Appearances To Love and Die in Dixie: In his first appearance, Chris is delivering newspapers to his house, and he tries to persuade Chris to come inside. His views on women are, "Who needs 'em?", revealing he may be a misogynist and/or gay. At the end, he leaves 113 messages on the phone, and they are all about Chris. From Method to Madness: He sees Jeff Campbell, a teenage nudist, and says "Holy moly, it must be my birthday!" "Family Guy: Live in Vegas": He sings the Broadway song "One Boy". This is humorous because the song is from Bye Bye Birdie, and is sung by a female character about her boyfriend. Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story: He is heard during the intermission asking, "Chris do you have a shower scene? Or do I have to keep dreamin'?" North by North Quahog: He disguises himself (unconvincingly) as an eighth-grader and asks two boys to dance. Brian points out that he is "one ugly eighth-grader". "You don't wanna hurt yourself dancing; make sure you stretch out those creamy hamstrings." Petarded: When they are singing the song after Peter is tested and found to be retarded, you can see him dancing towards the end (DVD only). Brian the Bachelor: When Chris takes his shirt off in the bathroom, he climbs up a ladder and spies on him, mimicking a scene in Animal House. The Perfect Castaway: He asks Brian for a car disguised as an ice-cream truck with which to entice children. The Courtship of Stewie's Father: Herbert is central to the plot of this episode. It is in this episode that his name is revealed, and that he also has a crippled dog named Jesse, who mirrors him. Chris breaks his window with a baseball, and Lois decides to pay for the broken window out of Chris's allowance. At Herbert's suggestion, Peter makes Chris do chores for Herbert. He later takes Chris out to dinner. At that point, he fantasizes about life with Chris, as his husband, for he sees himself as the wife, dressed as Donna Reed. He also does a musical number, "Somewhere that's Green" from Little Shop Of Horrors, which involves things that are extremely outdated, such as "watching Lucy on a big enormous 12-inch screen", and seeing the kids play Howdy Doody. In his fantasy family, he and Chris have two children, a boy who resembles Chris, and a girl who resembles Herbert. In the last scene of the episode, he turns on the TV to an announcement of the Little League World Series. He perks up and responds: "Jackpot!" You May Now Kiss The...Uh...Guy Who Receives: He does not sign Brian's petition for gay marriage "Get off my property, you pervert". While he may be homosexual, he may only be against gay marriage because he doesn't want gay people to have a commitment, or he doesn't want people to know of his own homosexual lusts for Chris. Or perhaps a sarcastic satire on his character, based on the fact that all of the people who refuse to sign in this sequence are either people who are themselves in some way either very liberal, sexually indiscriminate or homosexual and/or deviant themselves and would be expected to be supportive of it. Petergeist: He saves Chris from being eaten by a giant evil tree, and battles the tree in a similar fashion to Gandalf's battle with the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Hell Comes to Quahog: When Chris loses his paper route due to Superstore U.S.A., Herbert gets shot by the truck that's launching newspapers. Saving Private Brian: After Lois and Peter come down to stop Chris from rehearsing loudly in the garage, he gets angry at them and leaves to loiter in the park. To get to the park, he jumps on a motorcycle driven by Herbert. Whistle While Your Wife Works: He sends his dog Jesse out for a walk, and the dog is tempted to eat Peter's finger, which was previously blown off. Prick Up Your Ears: He is lined up to shake Stewie after he is shaken by Chris and Brian. Later in the episode, Stewie steals his dentures in the night while he is sleeping and dreaming about Fred Savage. Road to Rupert: Herbert can be seen in line at the Griffin's garage sale. Approaching Chris, Herbert asks him if he is selling any "clothes he wore in the summer". Chris then tells Herbert that all he has fitting that description is a pair of shorts, to which Herbert replies "Sweet Jesus!". Later appearances Herbert made an appearance in Play It Again, Brian in which Peter and Lois hire him to babysit the Griffin children because he's "watched" several children. While doing so he makes several attempts to seduce Chris, at one point trying to get Chris to bathe him; Meg does it instead, and Herbert exclaims "Rats!". Later he reads Peter and the Wolf to Chris as a bedtime story, changing the moral to suit his own means, and Chris asks Herbert if he's a pedophile... the reaction to this is not seen. During the closing credits he is shown sleeping at the foot of Chris' bed, where the Evil Monkey tries but fails to threaten him. During Season Seven, Herbert appeared in at least two episodes: "Family Gay," where he confused a jockey for a child; and "420," where - during a musical performance - he attempts to snare children in a butterfly net. During Season Eight, Herbert appeared in Road to the Multiverse. He appeared in the Disney universe parodying the Evil Queen from Snow White. He offered everybody an apple to put in their pies. But they all said no and threw pies at him and slammed the door on him. Category:Spooner Street Neighbors